Monday, October 30, 2017

With the inevitable arrival of the 16-bit generation, by 1991 the Famicom wasn't as important as before in the video game scene. Even though Konami was obviously moving forward with the development of new 16-bit titles, the company was still brave enough to deliver a late testament to the wonders of the NES hardware in the form of Crisis Force. Unfortunately the game was never released out of Japan, most probably because it used special cartridge components that would certainly require more work than usual in the porting process (a fate that also hit more famous titles such as Gradius II). One of the direct results of such fate is that since I've started collecting video games Crisis Force has always been a rather expensive cartridge.

First of all, it's okay to believe the hype when you hear people talking about how impressive this game is. In a sense, it's as if Konami had brought to the NES many of the effects and gameplay traits seen in 16-bit titles only, such as the densely layered parallax scrolling of some levels. And even if there isn't any explicit or official info in the credits, there is undeniable suspicion of Compile having worked on Crisis Force given how it sometimes feels like a Compile-developed title. A mercenary job from the competition or just pure homage? I can't be sure, but when it comes down to the game itself it certainly has everything you'd expect from a rock-solid 8-bit shmup: graphics, music, challenge and great fun factor.

The fate of the world rests on the shoulders of Asuka and Maya (Easy diff.)(courtesy of YouTube user ShiryuGL)

One of the aspects that make Crisis Force such an accomplishment is the clever way the NES controller is used, after all you can do a lot with just two buttons. Button II fires and button I can either work as a form switch or as a bomb. Whenever you're firing and button I is pushed a bomb is detonated, whereas a press of button I when you're not shooting will switch the ship's sprites to one of three forms: there's the default forward shot pattern, a secondary form that also shoots backwards and a third one which emphasizes lateral forepower. All forms also have two variations of each weapon dictated by the color of the power-ups you come across: blue endows the ship with even faster firing rates, red results in more powerful and intelligent shots (with wider reach, rotating shields or homing abilities). Blue and red power-ups are the only ones that cycle, and between each other only.

Each weapon can be upgraded three times by sticking to the same power-up. Upon getting hit the ship reverts back to its default status, and any shot taken at this condition means you'll lose a life. Regardless of how powered-up you are, a special badge-shaped item can be taken and stocked, and whenever 5 of them are collected the ship changes into a special form with timed duration and its own dedicated laser pattern. Further badges collected while in this form serve to extend it, getting hit shortens it and when the time is over the ship reverts back to its normal state (in co-op mode the special form combines both players into one ship where player one controls firepower and player 2 controls movement).

Other items players will come across are speed-ups (blue S), speed-downs (red S) and extra bombs (B). For my experience the ship never gets too fast, so I'll always take all speed-ups that come my way. Who knows, maybe they are actually worth something? And why do I ask this? Well, Konami seems to have sacrificed something in order to make Crisis Force such an astonishing game when in motion, after all the only functional info you can see during stages are your lives and the amount of bombs you're carrying. I's only possible to have a glimpse of your score in-between levels or in the GAME OVER screen, which means that during a full credit the last you'll be able to see of your score is the one that's displayed briefly once the 6th boss is defeated.

Damn it, Konami!

Third boss

The opening to Crisis Force is straight to the point and shows twin siblings waking up to their true legacy after Tokyo is bombarbed by an alien fleet. You'll see them again if you manage to overcome seven areas filled enemies and guarded by bosses that tend to be large and move all over the screen. Even though there are opportunities for milking I couldn't find any spot where it'd be possible to safely break the game, so eventually all enemies will perish. Ancient grounds compose a good chunk of the gameplay with Egyptian motifs in more than one level, as well as volcanoes and a sci-fi touch that reaches its peak in the boss rush of the final stage. Each weapon/ship can be handy in several parts of the game, even though the weapons fired by the default ship are the most powerful ones. Nevertheless it's very important to always get a power-up upon getting hit and not be greedy with bombs, especially in areas where enemies tend to enter the screen attacking with no prior warning.

Speaking of bombs, it's also important to mention that every ship form has a specific bomb animation. For the straight shot we get a round blast that expands outwards, the rear shot blows up a hole that sucks everything around it and the side shot sees the ship disintegrating and reintegrating again while being invincible. The best one in my opinion is the round blast, even if it doesn't come with invincibility. By the way, abusing the invincibility window that comes with the ship's special form is a safe way to deal with tricky passages, at least while you're learning them. Aggression and brute force is always the best alternative if you know what lies ahead. From what I could notice extends are granted with 50, 100 and 200 thousand points with another probable one at 400K.

If there's one thing that's technically below other aspects of the game is the soundtrack. It's a good one, but there's repetition of BGMs and none of them is actually mind blowing. It's interesting to note though that the boss theme seems to have been honored with a new rendition in the amazing Judgement Silversword, which in some ways is a successor to the 8-bit tour de force presented in Crisis Force.

The picture below shows my score right after I beat the 6th boss on my way to a 1CC on Normal difficulty. It's most likely the worst photo I have ever taken in the history of this blog because is was daytime and my cell phone hasn't been in its best shape for weeks now. In any case it should read 325.300, and that's my goodbye to this excellent little shooter.

Monday, October 16, 2017

In a post-apocalyptic world flooded by an evil force called Dark Anarchy Society (DAS), the only hope for the thriving humans is a special submarine designed to crush the enemy's ultimate weapon. The journey takes place throughout six stages of exquisitely crafted graphics, in a colorful mayhem that sees the player battling all sorts of creatures and military gear. It's a peculiar shooter that plays like nothing else, and also quite unique within Irem's library. Due to its aesthetical similarities with the Metal Slug games, which came later and were designed by practically the same team, In the Hunt could even be mistaken as a Neo Geo product.

In the Hunt (Kaitei Daisensou in Japanese) is indeed a special game among its shmup peers, as I mentioned above, mainly because of its flow. The gameplay is extremely methodical, less frantic and completely open to the pace dictated by the player since it uses a push-scroll scheme. The emphasis is in hazard management, not dodging bullets (dodging is still there, but in minimal doses and only in the last couple of levels). Abusive lethargy is avoided by a huge timer that blows the sub to shreds (no more oxygen?) once it reaches zero, which in turn inhibits infinite milking. Speaking of lethargy and coming from games that moved a lot faster, I was negatively struck when trying out this Saturn port. It feels even slower than the Playstation version I beat a while ago, but after a couple of credits the game won me over again so I decided to play it to the end.

The only problem of the Saturn port for In the Hunt, at least the US longbox variation, is that it comes with a few changes and scoring glitches. Though these are not of the gamebreaking kind, they certainly make it ineligible for comparisons with other versions of the game.

Coming back from death against the second boss

Our chubby submarine can fire torpedoes with button A, drop mines with button B and perform both actions with button C, the only input with native autofire. Torpedo types are switched by collecting the corresponding power-up that cycles colors: impact torpedoes (red/default), supersonic torpedoes (blue) and exploding torpedoes (green). There are also two types of mines, which differ in the way the auxiliary weaponry is fired towards the surface: floating mines when submerged and machinegun at surface level (A) or missiles when submerged + homing missiles at surface level (M). Each weapon can be powered up three times by sticking to the same color/letter.

Besides power-ups, players can also collect treasure balls with stars in them. Star count is displayed to the sides of the timer and contributes with one extra life for every 100 star points collected. Small stars are worth 1 point, big stars are worth 5 points, and in every serious credit it's possible to get at least two extra lives by taking treasure balls. Additionally, you should also know that each surplus item when you're at a maxed-out condition will also add 1 star point to this counter.

In the Hunt can be many things, except hectic. Most of the time haste leads to stupid deaths, so no matter what lies ahead caution is always the best alternative. Don't rush to get that item, don't move too far at the risk of being overwhelmed by more than what you can deal with. Wait and only then move. The abusive slowdown can be a pain and almost seems to bring the game to a halt at times (during the fight against the 5th boss, for instance), but eventually you learn to live with it. There is, however, an inexplicable change that required an adjustment to my previous approach in the gameplay: the clusters of the exploding torpedo (green type) are arranged horizontally instead of vertically, which drastically alters is function when compared to the arcade original or the Playstation version. Why the heck did this happen, I wonder?

Stage 1 - The South Pole(courtesy of YouTube user Euro Retro Gamer)

Besides the unnecessary change to the green torpedo, this port also doesn't seem to have the same scoring rules as other versions. Overall you seem to score less for killing the same waves/enemies, and there's a bug that happens every time you keep the firing button pressed in between levels: if you do this the score you should get by destroying the boss is not computed at all! And no matter how I dismantled the forms of the last boss, sometimes I just scored nothing during the fight. As much as I tried to figure out what was going on I couldn't do it, it's just that messed up so eventually I gave up.

Of course the alterations mentioned above do not take away from the fact that this is still a fun shooter. Each stage has its own particular setting and feel, with highlights being the harbor entry at the second stage (which screams of Metal Slug), the escape from a stone monster that needs to be bombarded with falling rocks to be defeated in stage 3 and the epic final level and its sequence of indestructible giant torpedoes that force you to open tiny gaps between them in order to proceed. The difficulty picks up in the final stretch of the game, which certainly has a good dose of epicness to it, so that kinda balances out the sluggishness that might scare some players away. For those who care, the soundtrack is remixed and there's an additional animated opening in this port.

Once I got the clear I lost interest in improving my score simply because I got no points whatsoever from beating the last boss, as you can see in the picture below. The game was played on Normal difficulty.

Interesting note about DAS, the recurring villainous force from Irem's arcade games that appears as main antagonist in In The Hunt, Geo Storm and Undercover Cops: this source says that if In the Hunt is beaten in 2-player mode both players will then fight each other for the final control over DAS. Now that's a cool objective to have if a friend decides to play the game with me!